Issues for Our Next Member of Congress

In one of my local liberal Facebook groups, a person asks what ought to be asked of aspiring candidates for our open Congressional seat (VA-10, most if not all of which is in Loudoun County). Its current incumbent, Jennifer Wexton, is being forced to retire due to the onset of a chronic illness.

A bit of background. Loudoun is the fastest growing county in Virginia, going from red, rural, and white to suburban, upscale, and boasting a diverse array of ethnicities, mostly from Asia. (I was surprised to learn that cricket is a big thing here.) Its chief economic asset is its concentration of server farms, also called data centers, that provide a gusher of property tax revenue and consume ungodly amounts of electricity and probably push up our utility rates. Obama’s election turned Loudoun from red to blue. Its resident Republican representative succumbed shortly after. In 2022, Wexton soundly defeated a local Trumpy fool for the seat.

In short, VA-10 is eminently winnable for Democrats in a county that grows bluer all the time, but in my view it is not a slam dunk, unless the Rs nominate another certifiable clown (not impossible). One of the biggest winners in our previous local election was our Trumpy county sheriff. This presents an interesting question — how to choose a replacement for Wexton.

There are many contenders. I confess to only knowing a bit about two of them. My bias is I want to move the Democratic caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives to the left, but I also want a Democrat to win the seat. The point of questions to aspiring candidates, therefore, is to calibrate the focus with a view towards encouraging progressive commitments on policy, but not unrealistically progressive. Alas, Loudoun is not ready for a Bernie Sanders. This political problem is more general than just for my little corner of the world.

Of the candidates I will only mention two, no disrespect to the others, about whom I confess to knowing nothing. One is Mr. David Reid, a local member of the state House of Delegates. I saw him in action at a meeting of our county Democratic committee. He is very smooth and likely to seek the absolutely best platform suited to winning in November. That is not exactly what I am looking for. I want somebody to push the envelope.

There is also a candidate named Atif Qarni, a local dentist and also an experienced pol. Qarni looks to be an ideal progressive candidate. There was talk in my local Democratic Socialists of America chapter of endorsing him. They decided against it, probably because he is too good. (Don’t get me started on DSA’s political chops.)

DSA has no boots on the ground out here so I’m not sure what an endorsement would have meant. Bottom line, Qarni would be an ideal candidate for local progressives to make a political impact in the primaries, but I’m not sure he could win in the general election this year. With better national Democratic prospects, he could be a gamble worth taking, but politically speaking, we are presently beggars who can’t be choosers.

So what would I ask the candidates about if I could sit them down in front a TV camera?

In one basket are the no-brainers for Democrats: reproductive rights, the democratic threat posed by Trump and his deplorables (the latter, thick on the ground out here). In Loudoun, what would also work for a Democrat would be gun control and support for LGBTQI+ in all its varieties.

My misgiving about the no-brainers is not out of any opposition to them. It’s that they play to our existing upscale, suburban, well-educated base, and that base is not a good foundation for the advance of social-democracy or, if you like, democratic socialism. I always like quoting a line from Adlai Stevenson, which he might have never said, in response to a supporter who said, “Every thinking person will be voting for you!” His reputed reply: “That’s not enough, Madam. We need a majority!”

We need national health insurance, more student debt relief, serious action on climate change, support for immigrants, labor rights, etc.. These are not necessarily big issues for this area. (I could be wrong, and I hope I am.) For real national progress, we need to crack the white working class. What with voter suppression and gerrymandering, we need more than a majority.

An interesting question for a Democratic candidate would be one that encourages him or her to take the most progressive stands best suited to winning in November. What are they? I have a few biases of my own. I would focus on the incremental reforms pushed by Sanders, who should be acknowledged as the national authority on politically viable progressive measures. The second basic principle is for a rep to at minimum support the Biden Administration when it is pointed in the right direction, rather than dragging it backwards. I would say Sanders understands the left wing of the possible, and Biden the right wing of the tolerable (Gaza aside).

One priority is expanding Medicare benefits in such areas as dental, vision, and mental health. Another in health care is further progress in cramming down the prices of prescription drugs. The Biden Administration is onto the latter, and at noted above we don’t want our representative throwing cold water on that effort. In the same vein, Obamacare could be further beefed up.

Then there is student debt relief, another case where the president needs support and encouragement. Related would be Federal aid to states aimed at fortifying state colleges, facilitating tuition reduction and more.

Immigration may be a tricky issue for Biden and Harris, but perhaps easier in Loudoun, which as I noted has a large contingent of foreign-born residents and people descended from immigrants. My pitch on immigrants is that more would be good, though they need transitional support funded by the Feds, provided by state and local governments.

Labor is as important as most anything. (Those data centers provide six-figure, union jobs.) State governments are the vehicle for abolition of right-to-work. Here the rep’s job is mostly backstopping the Biden National Labor Relations Board and me-tooing Biden’s happy talk about trade unions.

Campaigns need focus, so it would not do for a candidate to take up too many irons. There is still the no-brainer basket to tend to. The ideal candidate would enlarge space for the nicer things as well and help the party become less upscale-suburban and more meat-and-potatoes. The only interesting future for the Democratic Party is in class politics.